Mike Burns, who finished the season at Triple-A Nashville and had gone home for the winter, will rejoin the team in Friday in Milwaukee but not to take Parra’s spot in the starting rotation, Ash said. That start, against the Astros, will go to left-hander Chris Narveson.

Parra traveled back to Milwaukee on Wednesday morning for the MRI and a visit with head team physician William Raasch. The doctors are convinced that the problem in Parra’s neck, which dates to Sept. 8, when he left a start against the Cardinals after one inning, is muscular and not structural.

“He will continue physical therapy,” Ash said. “Mr. Burns will join us on Friday to make sure we have sufficient back-up.”

Brewers left-hander Manny Parra will undergo an MRI scan in Milwaukee on Wednesday morning, continuing the search for answers about his stiff neck. He’s extremely unlikely to make his scheduled start against the Astros on Friday, and club officials have righty Mike Burns on standby in the event they decide to end Parra’s season by placing him on the disabled list.

“I’ll wait until after I see [the doctor] to think about any of that,” Parra said. “My arm feels good and my body feels good other than the neck. … It’s stupid. I wake up every morning wondering, ‘Why the heck am I not pitching?'”

Parra woke up with a stiff neck on Sept. 8 but didn’t think much of it until the discomfort forced him out of his start against the Cardinals after one inning. Chris Narveson started in Parra’s place on Sunday in Arizona, and either Narveson or newly-promoted Josh Butler will start if Parra is indeed unable to pitch on Friday.

Dr. William Raasch, the Brewers’ head physician, will examine Parra on Wednesday. Parra has already seen three doctors for his condition and none have provided definitive answers.

“I feel like there’s small progress being made, but at the same time we expected more,” Parra said.

Manny Parra’s up-and-down season took another dip on Tuesday, when the Brewers left-hander left his start against the Cardinals after one inning with neck spasms and watched a parade of relievers scramble to fill innings in his wake.

They almost made it, but Trevor Hoffman’s blown save in the ninth led to a 4-3 loss that had the Brewers feeling down about more than losing their starter.

“Outstanding,” Parra said of the relief effort. “That’s tough to come out and pick up eight innings like work like that. I give everybody credit.”

As for his own prognosis?

“I have no idea, really,” Parra said.

Parra woke up Tuesday morning with a stiff neck but, “It was completely out of my mind,” by the time he took the mound against the Cardinals. On Ball 4 to Matt Holliday, the Cardinals’ fourth of five hitters in the inning, Parra said his neck snapped back and he felt the pain return. He retired Ryan Ludwick to end the inning but alerted the trainers to his predicament.

At the moment, Parra’s next scheduled start is Sunday in Arizona. If he’s unable to pitch, the Brewers could bump-up right-hander Yovani Gallardo to work in his place.

Prince Fielder’s first-inning homer gave the Brewers a 2-0 lead and Carlos Villanueva replaced Parra for three scoreless innings. Manager Ken Macha used eight pitchers in all, matching a franchise record for a nine-inning game.

The short night may have been especially disappointing to Parra given the opponent. He entered the night 2-1 with a 2.42 ERA in four starts this season against the Cardinals and 8-9 with a 7.49 ERA against everybody else.

Parra spent three weeks in Triple-A Nashville after a June 13 demotion, but hasn’t missed a start since 2007, when he fractured his left thumb during a late-season bunt attempt.

— Macha will announce his probable pitchers for the upcoming St. Louis series on Sunday. He’s considering ways to monitor right-hander Yovani Gallardo’s workload, but bumping him back a day in this case would mean Gallardo would miss the series against the Cardinals. Since the Brewers still publicly consider themselves contenders, that would be a tough move.

“Maybe some guys will get extra time and some guys won’t,” Macha said.

— Injured relievers Seth McClung (elbow) and Jesus Colome (forearm) are scheduled to throw 30-pitch bullpen sessions on Sunday morning. McClung has been on the disabled list since July 25 and is trying to rehab his elbow without succombing to a second career Tommy John surgery.

— Left-hander Manny Parra is introducing a cut fastball to his array of pitches, Macha said. It’s a work in progress; Pittsburgh’s Steve Pearce hit one Friday for a two-run double. Macha offered some words of support for Parra, who is 6-2 over his last nine starts despite a 6.49 ERA and a .341 opponents’ batting average.

“He does have nine wins, and he has a chance to get into the teens,
too,” Macha said. “Everybody has hopes for him to take a couple steps
forward. But looking at the cup half-full, he has nine wins.”

— For now, Macha has scrapped batting the pitcher eighth and shortstop Alcides Escobar ninth. Escobar batted eighth on Saturday for the second straight game.

“If we’re going to have [a position] player batting ninth, he needs to get on or you don’t have any benefit from it,” Macha said.

Escobar entered the weekend with a .292 on-base percentage.

— Corey Hart, recovering from his Aug. 2 appendectomy, threw in the outfield on Saturday and took batting practice. He appears to travel with the Brewers to St. Louis next week before joining postseason-bound Double-A Huntsville for a rehabilitation assignment. The Brewers don’t yet know how many Minor League games Hart would need to be ready for the big leagues.

Brewers manager Ken Macha likened lefty Manny Parra to a “whipped puppy” when the team demoted him to the Minors on June 13. After he returned to the Majors with seven scoreless innings on Thursday, Parra was asked if he agreed with the manager’s assment.

“Whipped puppy. That kind of makes you feel like a kid, so I don’t like it,” Parra said. “Bottom line is I was struggling.”

He was much better against the Cardinals, even if he had to settle for a no-decision in a dishearting 5-1 loss at Miller Park. Parra allowed only three singles and one walk alongside seven strikeouts, and he threw 77 of his 110 pitches for strikes.

The Brewers expect Dave Bush to return from the disabled list soon after the All-Star break — Bush is to pitch Friday for Class A Wisconsin — but Parra could further boost the starting rotation if he stays on track.

“If that’s what we’re going to be looking at in the second half, it would be a welcome sight,” Macha said.

“It’s going to help a lot,” said first baseman Prince Fielder, who had a run-in with Parra
last season in the dugout at Cincinnati but praised the pitcher’s
effort on Thursday. “You saw the way he was, so hopefully he can keep
it going.”

They key was confidence.

“I was aggressive,” Parra said. “It came down to being confident and trusting that I can throw the ball over the plate. We put them into counts where they had to swing the bat. Before, I was trying to make perfect pitches. Today, I just trusted it and went with it.”

Manny Parra is back, and Brewers coaches are trying to make his start against the Cardinals as normal as possible to avoid putting too much pressure on the left-hander. That said, it’s a big start for Parra as he tries to reclaim his spot in Milwaukee’s starting rotation.

Corey Hart is out of the lineup for a second straight day after fouling a pitch off his left foot in Tuesday’s series opener against the Cardinals, but x-rays were negative and he said he should be back in against the Dodgers on Friday night.

So Frank Catalanotto starts in place of Hart, and catcher Mike Rivera, who had not played a single inning since June 27, gets a rare chance to play. Bill Hall is not on-site today because he traveled home to Mississippi for a family funeral.

Manny Parra will return from his demotion to Triple-A Nashville to start against the Cardinals on Thursday.

Not necessarily that he’s ready, but because the Brewers need him.

“He’s pitched a couple of good games,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said of Parra’s Minors stint. “He’ll be given the opportunity to take charge of what we’d like him to take charge of, and that’s being a guy who’s going to start for us every fifth day.”

Parra will take the spot previously occupied by Seth McClung, who worked 7 1/3 total innings in his two starts. To make room on the 25-man roster, the Brewers designated left-hander Chris Narveson for assignment after their 5-4 win over the Cardinals on Wednesday night.

I did not see Parra in the clubhouse, but I imagine he made it to Milwaukee at some point during the day or the team would not have announced the roster move.

Updating my post from a few hours ago, it appears that Manny Parra will return to the Brewers’ starting rotation on Thursday against the Cardinals. Manager Ken Macha wouldn’t confirm who will pitch that game, but he did lay out his rotation for the rest of the week:

The Triple-A Nashville Sounds have juggled their probable pitchers for the week and left-hander Manny Parra isn’t on the list, a very strong indication that the Brewers will recall him to the big leagues for a start at some point this week.

The Brewers need a pitcher by Saturday at the latest, but also could slate someone in as soon as Wednesday. That just happens to be Parra’s day to pitch, had he remained on schedule in Nashville.

Brewers manager Ken Macha and general manager Doug Melvin were to meet this afternoon to set the rotation for the final homestand before the All-Star break. Macha could announce his plan when he meets with reporters just after 4 p.m. CT.

Parra was 3-7 with a 7.52 ERA in 13 starts before the Brewers demoted him to Nashville after a loss to the White Sox on June 13. In four Triple-A starts, he went 1-2 with a 2.92 ERA, including seven scoreless innings at Round Rock on Wednesday.

General manager Doug Melvin and manager Ken Macha will have another of their Miller Park meetings on Tuesday, and two questions will dominate the discussion:

– Who will join the starting rotation this week?

– Is it time to send Mat Gamel back to Triple-A Nashville so he can play?

First, the pitching.

Yovani Gallardo will start Tuesday’s series opener against the Cardinals but the Brewers’ could introduce a new arm to the rotation as early as Wednesday. It appears that Seth McClung, who surrendered 10 runs in 7 1/3 innings over his two starts, will return to the bullpen, meaning that Melvin must fill the vacancy either via a trade, a signing or a promotion.

The promotion may be the most likely scenario, and left-hander Manny Parra threw his name back into the hopper when he pitched seven scoreless innings for Nashville on Friday. Parra has been sharp in three of his four starts in the Minors since the Brewers demoted him last month, and his next scheduled start is on Wednesday.

Because of Monday’s off-day, Macha does not need another starter until Saturday. Macha expected to have his decision by Tuesday.

“If we need to make an adjustment we need to let [the staff at Nashville] know by Tuesday,” Macha said.

Then, Gamel.

The emergence of Casey McGehee as an everyday member of Milwaukee’s starting lineup has left Gamel twiddling his thumbs on the bench. He walked as a pinch-hitter on Saturday, but has only four plate appearances this month and 15 plate appearances in the Brewers’ last 12 games.

“I’ve thought about that,” Macha said Saturday. “I thought about playing him today but this guy [Cubs starter Rich Harden] has a real good change-up. They’ve been throwing [Gamel] a lot of slow stuff. Casey’s emergence here has stumped that. It’s something that Doug and I will talk about. We’ve already talked about it.”

They have discussed the same question being asked by many Brewers fans: Would Gamel, considered along with Triple-A shortstop Alcides Escobar to be Milwaukee’s top prospects, be better off playing every day in the Minors?

Melvin was mum on the topic.

“If we have a roster move, we’ll let you know,” Melvin said. “It’s not good to talk about players or roster moves while they are still here. Nobody likes to know their fate ahead of time.”

If the Brewers do indeed return Gamel to Nashville, they would promote another position player, Macha said.

“It is a tough call,” Macha said. “You look for balance in your lineup, and [Gamel] is a left-handed hitter. We’re breaking him into the big leagues, and you don’t want to bury him. You try to pick a spot where he can be successful, get some confidence, and yet you’re trying to contend for a pennant.

“It gets to be a jam. You’re developing a guy, so do you put the pressure on him that he’s going to be up there with guys on base all the time? … In a way, I was put into a little bit of a ‘zim-zam.’ It’s got me flummoxed.”

– Manny Parra took a tough loss in his second Triple-A start. He didn’t allow a run until the seventh inning in Albuquerque, and retired Manny Ramirez in both of the slugger’s plate appearances, but was on the wrong end of the decision in the Sounds’ 1-0 loss to the Isotopes. Parra threw 59 of his 93 pitches for strikes and allowed a run on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts. The lone run scored on a two-out single off Parra.

– Rookie-level Helena played their season-opener tonight behind Nick Bucci, who allowed only one run on three hits in five good innings with four strikeouts and — follow his lead, kids — no walks.

– A couple of 2009 Draft picks were enjoying big professional debuts as of this writing. Second-rounder Cameron Garfield started his career with hits in his first five at-bats, and three RBIs. Nineteenth rounder Scott Krieger hit a three-run homer. Thirty-second rounder Chris Ellington was a double shy of the cycle, scored three runs and drove in a pair.

– Right-hander R.J. Seidel is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with the rookie-level Arizona Brewers on Wednesday. Brewers general manager Doug Melvin told us in April that Seidel was out for the year after “tearing up” his knee when he slipped on some ice over the winter, but perhaps that assessment has changed. Seidel is a Wisconsin native drafted in the 16th round by the Brewers in 2006.

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